A longer story then normal next I might do a mystery theme

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I lived in a small house with my parents, I never left home as I had no reason to I always sat in my room reading books that my parents left outside my door, and every time for breakfast lunch and dinner we would sit down at the dining room table and eat as a family, the food was always set before I got there. My parents would always talk about how their stay at home jobs as authors were really great. But every time we sat to eat there was always a fourth man sitting opposite me, this man always stared at me every time my family ate with him, always sat there with tired eyes that seemed to be slightly bulging out of there sockets, staring at me unblinking, I tried to avoid eye contact but it didn’t seem to matter as I could still feel his gaze burning itself into my soul. There had to be something wrong with this man, even when my parents looked at him and talked to him about their work and progress, even about future books that they haven’t put out yet, he never responded, never looked at them, it’s as if he wasn’t acknowledging their existence, his eyes only focused on me.

Every day was like this, the man would be here every time, staring, I don’t know who he was, was he a friend of my parents? He couldn’t have been related to us either he looked nothing like me or my parents, I looked around the house and every photo we had was just baby pictures of me growing up, although the more I looked at the pictures the more I noticed things. I never remembered anything from when I was a kid, which I thought was normal, but in the books I read though, the main characters remember what their childhood was like they know their age and moments, I remember none of that, I didn’t even know how old I was, did I even have a birthday?

I needed answers, and I asked my parents my age but they seemed to avoid the question, so I decided next time I would attempt to ask the man that sat across from me, he's been here for some time maybe he might know.

At dinner time we all sat down and began eating, my parents were chatting up a storm like usual and the man continued to sit opposite of me staring like he always did, now was the time I got some answers. I decided to start with some small talk and asked him how his day was.
No Response.
Maybe he just had a bad day? I decided to ask something else, like how was the food? Seemed reasonable right?
No Response.
Ok, I said to myself I knew this man was weird but this is beginning to get annoying, enough beating around the bush ill just ask what I wanted to know.
“How old am I?”
Once I said those words the man that did nothing but stare spoke up immediately without hesitation.
“Twenty-Seven years old, your birthday is in three months and ten days,” he said in a raspy voice that sounded like a man that had been smoking for his whole life.
Twenty-Seven??? This man must be insane he has to be, every time I check the mirror when I wake up Iv got the body of a child, at most id say late teens maybe? All I have to go off of that is from books Iv read but no way am I twenty-Seven. I was about to say something to the man to maybe get a better understanding of anything at the moment but he spoke up again.

“Enjoying the books I get for you? How about dinner?” he said eyes never looking away from me.
Enjoying the books? How about dinner? He doesn’t give me any new books mom and dad do, and my parents are the ones to make the meals, he just appears and freeloads of them. At this point, I was starting to get mad, first, he lies about how old I am, then he starts lying about giving me books, and now saying he makes the food here? Who does this man think he is?

“Yeah, why do we even invite him here anymore?” said my mother in an annoyed voice.

“He doesn’t do anything for us and all we do is give.” My father said also annoyed.

“We should kill him.” They both said

What? Kill him, how did it escalate to that so fast?

“He's dangerous we can't keep him around, what if he tries to attack us in our sleep? We should get him before he gets to us.” They both said as the man ignored them and stared at me.

They’re right, we have to do it, he's probably overheard my parents saying this, no way in hell he hasn’t, I have to kill him now before he kills me. I slowly reached for the dinner knife acting as normal as possible, before grabbing it and lunging over the table knife in hand and stabbing it towards him. There was almost no resistance as I plunged the blade deep into his neck, we both fell over his chair breaking under our combined weight and the force of my lunge. As I got up I saw the man's blood beginning to pool onto the floor his lifeless body lying their eyes wide open still staring.

My parents reassured me that I did the right thing, we were safe now, no longer would I have to worry about this man staring at me, I was free from the weird man and I was happy. My parents told me to just go upstairs and relax for the night, go to bed and sleep this all off, they would clean this mess up and my life would go back to normal.

I woke up feeling happy that this would all just be a thing of the past a bad dream of sorts, but as I went downstairs for breakfast and saw last night's dinner still on the table, the man's corpse still lying on the ground something was up. My parents came downstairs and said not to worry about a thing they just got caught up with writing that was all, they said to just eat the leftovers and they would sort everything out by tomorrow guaranteed.

I woke up, stomach growling from lack of food, my mouth was kind of dry I needed something to drink as I got dressed and looked in the mirror I noticed it had a lot of cracks in it, which was weird I dressed myself yesterday and everything was fine, I shrugged and went downstairs for breakfast again.
The body still lay on the ground the blood all dry nothing had changed, what the fuck was going on? My parents came downstairs and as I turned around to say something to them, I noticed their faces were more tired, worn, aged, they seemed to lack energy.

“We are sorry son but we were just so tired last night we couldn’t clean this up or get groceries, please just go to your room and rest and once you wake up by tomorrow it will all be fixed, ok?”

I didn’t want to believe them, my stomach was in pain my throat dry, but I didn’t have a choice if that’s what they say I have to believe them, they wouldn’t lie to me while I'm dying right?

I woke up again, my throat was as dry as sand my stomach was hurting, everything hurt, I tried to get out of bed but it was hard, I struggled to so much as move my legs. After what seemed like ages I was able to drag myself out of bed and out of my room, the walls of our house seemed so aged, was it always like this? What was going on? What was happening? Why was everything falling apart?

As I dragged myself down the stairs I saw the body still down on the floor nothing had changed, WHY! WHY HAD NOTHING CHANGED!? I turned and saw my parents coming down the stairs, their bodies warped, disfigured and falling apart.

“It’s no longer fine son.” They said their voices distorted and breaking.

I NEEDED TO GET OUT!

I dragged myself to the front door, I needed to leave to get away from these monsters, why was this happening? What did I do to deserve this, why me? As I dragged myself to the door I could hear the sick moans of my parents their voices sounding less like them and more like multiple creatures wailing in agony, as I made it to the door I used all my strength to struggle to my feet and open the door, all while they slowly approached. As they were only mere inches from me I managed to use the last of my strength to open the door, causing me to fall over and down porch steps. As I looked up my body hurting all over I saw a wasteland of destroyed structures and broken vehicles, skeletal corpses littered the streets, as I looked back at my parents they had stopped at the doorway to the house, they stared at me with multiple bulging eyes.

“It's all coming back to you isnt it?” they said the voice going straight to my brain, it hurt.

“The world was ending, and you couldn’t accept that, and to save your mind you locked yourself away in a fantasy world were everything was fine, where you had a happy life with a loving family, and created us to help simulate it since that man couldn’t play along.” The voices hurt my head, the world was beginning to spin, going dark I was losing consciousness, I could faintly hear screeching from all over in the distance.

It all came back, the world was ended horrific creatures devoured almost everyone, my father and I managed to hide in this house each day the monsters slaughtered people outside and their shrieks drove me to the brink of insanity, to try and save my almost broken mind I tried to escape into a fantasy world within my mind, leaving my father alone in this hell to deal with me. Those weren’t the eyes of someone who hated me they were the sad eyes of a parent that lost their son, hoping to get him back.

The sounds of Screeches many claws against cement approached as everything faded to black

I'm sorry.